Not Ready
by Harbinger Loki
Summary: Koraly Tabris has had to change her plans at the last second. Others are asked to say goodbye. One of them is not ready.


"Goodbye" Tabris Fanclub Challange

Warden: Koraly Tabris, duelist rogue

LLLLLL

_Take a step. _

_And another._

_Another._

_One more._

_Don't look back!_

llllllll

Red hair flashed in the corner of the Sten's eyes. He turned his head, knowing that the person he would think would be there, wouldn't. The port of Kirkwall only made it more impossible because she hadn't even come out of her alienage before the blight.

The gates to the Arishok were in front of him. His words...She was basalit-an to the others, though the Sten would keep to himself that she was Kadan, for there was no one else he would know that could find a sword in the sea of thousand possibilities.

There would be no one else like her.

LLLLLLL

It was summer in Feralden. She was nineteen summers before her 'wedding' but only a bottle of snatched wine and some clumsily gotten boots were her presents. Shianni had laughed as the wine they had gotten was instead champagne, the expensive kind and it exploded over the both of them.

Laughter.

Now in the midst of going to Ostagar, on her way to a journey she would have never pictured herself of, red-haired and green-eyed Koraly Tabris thought the world needed that laughter even more than they needed her.

And perhaps she wished she could have had some more of that expensive champagne.

LLLLL

"He was just a little boy!" They are screaming. Yelling. Redridge is only two days behind them. The pounding pressure and tension has finally snapped the drawbridge that was her friendships with her companions.

Ohgren drank just a bit more than usual. Wynne's eyes were disappointed and ashamed and on the Warden each time she sat by the fire, eating the smallest portions. (She was never used to eating big meals, not even with her out of the alienage.) Shale did not care and Morrigan only smirked at her especially with Alistair watching.

Zevren sat away from her. Despite Redridge and their failed romance as she had told him that this was not the chance, he was a good friend when he could be. Right now, as he sat away from her though, not intervening on Alistair's hurtful accusations, he was still hurting from his rejection. Leliana only seemed to become entranced in the fire, probably thinking things over to herself as well.

"You should have done something different!" It was finally Sten who broke the fight up, as one-sided as it was. Koraly kept her words to herself throughout Alistair's disapproval, taking in the verbal lashing.

"Warden, we are on watch." Alistair stared at her waiting for anything. Koraly ducked her head to go around him, smiling up at Sten. Her hands reached for her weapons before speaking.

"That's right! We are! Sleep well everyone!" She waved before heading into the camp perimeter with the Qunari.

lllllll

_"Kadan"_

_"What does that mean?"_

_"It means of the heart."_

_"Of the heart?"_

_"You alone found a sword in the midst of battes."_

_"Aw, thanks Sten!"_

LLLLLLLL

"Hurry! We need to get to Ft. Drakon!" Seeing the Archdemon in the air and Riordan's fighting, Koraly managed her troops with efficiency of any well-known tactician. Her swords slicing through the many Genlocks with little trouble. Despite the Blight and the amount of enemies, Koraly only smiled brightly at the wonderful dancing in her fighting. She was confident, despite Morrigan being pissed off at her and leaving the night before.

She was not going to die today and she knew it! Riordan would take the sacrifice.

She had Wynne to heal her mis-steps, Leliana to create the bolstering strums of her bowstring, and Sten who was her partner as they killed the darkspawn, moving in a fast salsa of blood and amputation. She laughed joyously. Koraly Tabris would not die today!

She would not die to the Archdemon!

That is when she looked up to see the progress of Riordan's battle in the air as the large dragon loomed over. He got the wing! He...

He fell.

'Oh no...No! Riordan!' She watched in horror. No. NO. NO! Chest painfully beating in pain and fright only made her grab her heart for fear of her heart escaping. She was going to go on a ship with Zevren and Shale and Sten.

She was going to eat alot! More than she had ever seen at the wedding celebration of Anora and Alistair! She was going to learn how to dance better and to play Wicked Grace with Sten, since Zevren always cheated, tomorrow. She was going to see Tevinter and Seheron and even Kirkwall!

"Kadan!" Sten's loud voice clamored her out of her stupor as the rogue warden turned to look at the large man. In his violet eyes she saw her promises and his concern. She was his comrade and partner in arms. The city elf panted, mind grasping for anything to hold onto. She had to make sure they rest of them lived.

She almost cursed the fact that she left Alistair back down by the city gates to lead his army. He was needed there. Riordan was supposed to survive. She was supposed to only help!

'He doesn't know.' Her only words resounded in her head as she nodded at Sten. He would never know that she enjoyed their watches together more than she should, that Koraly Tabris was far more frightened of him dying than herself, or that she sometimes let him win at Wicked Grace on some nights so that he wouldn't see that she was cheating.

So that he would see she was an honest person.

"Plan is the same! Get to the Fort!" The Qunari nodded at her, clearing a path where he could with Wynne and Leliana starting the orchaestra of magic and death.

Koraly didn't have the heart to tell them.

She would dance with the archdemon alone.

LLLLLLL

There was a merchant boat going to Seheron. The Arishok told him to be on it to send a message to the Ariqun and the Arigena. To tell them what he had seen in Ferelden. It was then he swore he saw her.

It was a lithe woman, red hair in the same color and cut. She had another girl with her, along with a short dwarf. Sten shook his head as another woman approached the flame-haired woman. She turned and Sten felt something scare him as he mouthed the words, 'Kadan'.

He also would not say to anyone else that green eyes haunted his sleep. The captain of the ship looked down, yelling at him.

He had to leave but the woman who was supposed to come with him had broken her word.

Sten was alone at the railing.

LLLLLL

"Sten! Get me a clear path now! The Archdemon's weak!" Her stalwart companion rushed to her side, killing hurlocks as quickly as genlocks. Koraly almost wished she hadn't gotten Sandal to enchant all their weapons with damage versus Darkspawn.

It had only been meant to help Riordan.

The path was cleared with the bodies of the dead as the bridge she had to walk on. Red hair whipping in her face, Koraly took a second to look around. Despite all the hardships and troubles, these people all had been her best friends.

Shianni...

Laughter and summer smiles flashed across her mind as the sweet champagne fell on the two naughty women, drunk with the sucess of their thievery.

Father...

He was going to have to lead where she left the reigns of power. He and Shianni would have to try their best. She would have paid anything to just be back in his house, enjoying mushroom soup or the rare beef stew.

"Kadan!" His yell awoke her from memories, regrets. Sten's eyes scrunched together. The goatee that she had said was good looking for him growing from stubble on his chin. His white hair was drenched with red splatters. The rogue breathed in this moment. This was what she wanted to remember the most, not the Archdemon, not the satisfaction of killing Loghain and Arl Howe.

She wanted her last memory to be of the Sten of the Beresaad, the unguarded look he cast back at her, the very picture of him being in his element where he was at home, Asala in his grip. Koraly ran through the path he carved, both swords coming out in front of her as she leaped in the air.

And felt lighter than any god could make her.

Her swords hit home.

She fell.

'Sten'

LLLLL

Duncan could only cast his eyes at his newest recruit. The wedding gown she wore was torn and bloody. She had refused to leave without wearing it.

"It's my wedding day. You are not getting me out of this dress." The warrior only laughed at her willingness, shaking his head as they left Denerim on the path down towards Lothering. She was upright and feirce in the time the were travelling.

She would make a fine Warden.

LLLLLL

"They're taking her! Father! FATHER!" Koraly ran through the alienage to find her father held down by sword point. Her mother Adaia being dragged through the market to the alienage. She was only ten summers old with scrapes on her knees and rough callouses on her fingers from her mother's sword play.

She was grabbed by a soldier to not intervene as her mother was dragged in front of their home. A crowd was gathered of fretting elves, fretting elves that were coated with her mother's blood in only moments later as a sword sliced through her neck.

Koraly, for the first time, was determined to become something more than another 'elf.'

LLLLL

Sten brought her body back to the gates. Wynne and Leliana were holding each other up as they followed the Qunari. He would not relinquish her body to Alistair until her body was put into the cold morgue to keep in stasis until Wynne could help cast spells.

They held a wake for all of Denerim to attend, one for the people brought down in the fighting and another just for her. During the entire time, Sten had stayed by her body. Knowing he would leave when the body would. There was nothing else there for him. He had found out what the blight was.

It was during one of these nights before the wake that Alistair came into the freezing cold room that was the Morgue.

LLLLL

Seheron was duties with one filled after another. He did as asked. He talked with his comrades and he tried to figure out how to make 'cookies.' He missed the sweet confection that Koraly had given him many times throughout their journey.

He looked at the failed attempt he had tried at the kitchens. His fingers touched the pommels of his Kadan's twin swords in his belt. There was still a warmth he had yet to explain there.

His eyes closed as he thought upon the last time he saw his Kadan. Her red hair flying from her face as she ran past him into the air. Her green eyes that had focused on him had made the man realize that she was saying good bye. She had known the outcome.

Sten shrugged to himself out of his thoughts. At the least, the Qunari kept her souls safe with him.

He wasn't truly ready to say goodbye.


End file.
